


Epiphany For the Unknowing and the Blind

by schrodingers__cat



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman and Robin (Comics), Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Any other character is just someone he talks about in his monolgue, Bat Family, Could lead to fluff, Damian is Robin, Damian is the only real character, Dick Grayson is Batman (mentioned), Fluff, Fluffish, Gen, Good Big Brother Dick Grayson, Light Angst, Not really a story, Protective Damian Wayne, Well - Freeform, actually, but he's a bit older than in canon, doesn't take place in canon, no editing we die like robins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-28
Updated: 2018-11-28
Packaged: 2019-09-01 14:55:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16767364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/schrodingers__cat/pseuds/schrodingers__cat
Summary: Sometimes, people just don't get how much Damian's big brother means to him.





	Epiphany For the Unknowing and the Blind

_Why aren’t you understanding me?_

Nightwing is the one who taught me everything important. Have you ever had someone teach you how to be happy? Taught you that happiness was an emotion you could feel that was good, and wonderful, and hurt so bad but it was always worth it every single time? Nightwing is the man who showed me that a punishment was being grounded for a week, not broken bones, bruises, _pain_. That it was okay to watch cartoons and be scared of horror movies and cry when Mufasa dies. He cries every single time, did you know that? 

Talk to me when you have someone who alienated his own baby brother, who didn’t get a chance to grieve his own father, just so he could spend his time taking care of you. Tell me when you know a man who did the one thing- _the one thing!_ he said he’d never do, for a city that wasn’t his anymore, for a little brother who’d done nothing for him. For a little brother who’d basically tried to murder his family. Who’d been murdering innocents by the time he was seven. This man is the first person to look at you, look at all of you- every little piece that’s covered in spilled blood that isn’t yours, and say “Who cares? You’re my little brother and I love you. _I will always love you.”_

And you’re terrible to him, at first. Those first few months you do everything in your power to hurt him, because your mother abandoned you and your father is dead and this man is wearing his cowl. You don’t care that Batman was his father too, you don’t care that the Manor was his home for years and now it was like a mausoleum, because you’re too caught up in yourself and your _precious heritage_ to feel anything but bitterness. He was the only person who failed to see how terrible of a person you were because he only saw what you could be. What you had the potential to become. So he lets everything he’d built crumble and dedicates himself to a legacy he didn’t want, and a child that wasn’t his, even when every single living member of his family hated you.

He even takes you away. Away from the memorials, the cases, _cases, CASES_ of empty, hollow suits and the shrines to people you didn’t really know yet that only reminded you of what you’ll never be- because even in your own mind you’re broken, _ruined_ , and you didn’t even know it until that moment. But then you’re free and you’re living in his penthouse, in a room that never belonged to someone else, with empty spaces on the wall that he says to fill with your creations. There aren’t any cases there, no empty suits, no engraving that says _“a good soldier.”_ That is where you make the memories that form your very self, the renewed, better _you._ That is the place you think of when you think of home, even when you haven’t lived there for years. You know that he keeps your room exactly as you left it, with all your art on the walls, for you both to come back to whenever you need to, when he needs Gotham and family and you need to get away.

I was talking with Father one day, quite a while ago now. Talking about nothing, about everything, and the subject came up- I don’t remember how. He looked at me and said that I looked like him in nearly every way. My nose? That’s Talia’s. My eyes are his, though, the shape of my face, my mouth, my jaw, the way I’m built, it’s all his. But he says after he came back, after he recovered, he saw me smile for the first time. And the smile? That was _Grayson’s._ He said it looked just like him.   
I felt guilty for a week afterwards. Not because I had a little bit of Richard in me, no, it was because of the fact that I had something that was _his_ just made me _so proud_. He said my smile looked just like Richard Grayson’s and I’d never felt so honored in my _life_ , and somehow that felt like I was betraying my father. It was the little spark of joy in Batman’s eyes when Father told me, though, that made me realize he felt the same way- and so I let myself be proud of it.

It nearly gave me whiplash the other day- it’s been years, but someone- might’ve been one of the Reds- said “Batman, come look at this,” and I looked straight at Nightwing, half expecting him to smirk and walk over. I almost jumped when Father was the one who responded. 

It’s strange, how even though I am Father’s Robin, Father isn’t really my Batman. 

_Tt_. Never underestimate Nightwing. And never underestimate what I would do for him, and everything he did for me. 

Got it? 

Good.

**Author's Note:**

> To be honest, I don't have much access to canon materials, so I was a little generous with details. Feel free to tell me if I got anything wrong, I'll go back and fix it. I just love Damian and Dick's relationship as almost-father-and-son-but-not-quite, and this idea came to me pretty much out of the blue. Damian's a bit OOC because he's supposed to be older, maybe towards 16 or 17 at this point, still Robin but old enough that he's gotten over some of his emotional repression. I kinda imagined he was yelling this at one of the Titans, but honestly you can imagine whoever you want, there wasn't anyone in particular I had in mind. Thanks for reading, love ya!


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